1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to a method and apparatus for updating software of a mobile terminal.
2. Description of the Related Art
As mobile terminals have evolved to provide complex and various functions, there has been a desire for upgrading mobile terminal software to correct firmware errors, add new functions, improve the user interface, and the like.
To update firmware of a mobile terminal, a technology known as Firmware Over-The-Air (FOTA) is used. The protocol for FOTA is a Firmware Update Management Object (FUMO) which is standardized by the Open Mobile Alliance Device Management (OMA-DM). FOTA uses a scheme that updates firmware by downloading a delta file to the mobile terminal through wireless communication. The delta file is a file generated by comparing existing software with new software and extracting delta corresponding to a difference between the two software versions. The mobile terminal updates a previously installed version of the software to an upgraded version, using the delta file. That is, delta file typically contains data and instructions that can be used to convert a currently installed software (equivalently referred to as “file”) to an upgraded software.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a related art general software update service system for a mobile terminal using FOTA. In this system, a communication provider or manufacturer associated with a mobile terminal 100 uploads a delta file for updating software of the mobile terminal 100 to a FOTA server 102. The FOTA server 102 then transmits a push command (in response to a FOTA command executed by the uploading entity) to a push server 104. The push server 104 transmits a push notification to the mobile terminal 100 in response to the push command. This informs the mobile terminal 100 that a software update is available through a push.
Subsequently, when a user of the mobile terminal 100 requests updating of the software, the mobile terminal 100 downloads the delta file for updating the software from the FOTA server 102. Downloading the delta file from the FOTA server 102 to the mobile terminal 100 is performed based on an OMA-DM protocol. The software updating may be performed when the mobile terminal re-boots, installs the new software version using the delta file, and re-boots again.
Typically, the mobile terminal software is continually upgraded with a new version. There may exist many stepwise versions for a particular software; if so, a delta file is uploaded to a FOTA server for each version. A delta file of each version upgrades a previous version that is one-step lower.
Therefore, the mobile terminal upgrades the software of a currently installed version (the “current version”) by receiving only a delta file one-step higher than the current version from among delta files of respective versions provided from a communication provider or a manufacturer.
When a mobile terminal does not perform updating on time, many versions may exist subsequent to the current version. Thus, if versions A, B C, and D exist, a first delta file for upgrading version A to version B is downloaded, then a second delta file for upgrading version B to version C is downloaded, and so on. Also, an installing and re-booting operation is performed for each updating. Therefore, when many versions for updating exist subsequent to the current version, it is burdensome and time consuming to perform the repetitive updating to complete all the updating.
Also, under certain scenarios, an operation of downgrading an upgraded software version to a previous version may be required. For example, downgrading may be required when the mobile terminal user is not satisfied with the upgraded software when compared to the previous version, or when the upgraded software causes a problem in using another software program.
However, as the mobile terminal upgrades the software of the current version by receiving only an incremental delta file for each version, the user only has the choice of upgrading the current software version to version one-step higher, or, declining to upgrade. Therefore, there is no conventional way to downgrade the software to a previous version once upgrading is complete.
Also, a single FOTA server manages and backs up information of all mobile terminals associated with mobile terminal software updating within a large network. Thus, stability is insufficient and a great amount of load may occur when many users concurrently access the single FOTA server.